Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) Director of Public Affairs Janet Walsh is spending today sharing information, but not in her usual manner. Walsh is outside the Hamilton County/Cincinnati Public Library’s main branch sporting a sweatshirt and sign that urge voters to support Issue 52, the renewal of the CPS tax levy.

“I’m a stand-in for all the principals and teachers that can’t be here today,” she says.

Local subscribers to Time Warner and Insight cable woke up today without access to WLWT-TV
(Channel 5) after the station and companies failed to reach a new
retransmission agreement. Instead, the cable companies offered Channel 2
from NBC affiliate Terre Haute, Ind. The Enquirer is all over
the story, reporting that Todd Dykes and Lisa Cooney in the morning were
replaced by someone named Dada Winklepleck in Wabash Valley, Ind. Don’t
worry: 30 Rock will still be on your new local Indiana station. Visit
mywabashvalley.com for further details about additional programming. Or
you can just hook up an antennae and get WLWT in hi-def for free.

Anyone in the market for a school building? Cincinnati
Public Schools is adding four closed buildings to a for-sale list in an
attempt to raise the capital necessary to complete an overhaul of its
in-use buildings as part of its Facilities Master Plan.
The new buildings on the list are Central Fairmount, Kirby
Road, North Fairmount and Old Shroder schools.

Barack Obama is in Iowa apparently setting up an issue on
which to debate Romney later this fall. Obama is pitching an extension
of the Bush-era tax cuts for households earning less than $250,000,
while Romney wants to extend them for rich people, too.

The FDA went against the advice of an expert panel,
deciding not to require mandatory training for doctors prescribing
long-acting narcotic painkillers that can lead to addiction.

Three-hundred-square-foot apartments in New York City? Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked developers yesterday to try to make them work.

City planners envision a future in which the young, the
cash-poor and empty nesters flock to such small dwellings — each not
much bigger than a dorm room. In a pricey real estate market where about
one-third of renter households spend more than half their income on
rent, it could make housing more affordable.

The second day of the Jerry Sandusky
sexual abuse trial continues today, with a second accuser expected to
testify. In his opening statement, Sandusky's lawyer questioned the
credibility of the eight young men accusing him of multiple crimes
over several years, claiming that they have a financial motive to
make false claims. He also acknowledged that Sandusky's behavior and
his showering with young boys was “kind of strange” but said it
was not sexual abuse.

It
starts with an attempt to undercut Romney. As a corporate buyout
executive, Romney shipped jobs overseas and reaped millions of
dollars in fees from takeover deals that destroyed U.S. factory jobs,
the Obama campaign says. As Massachusetts governor, Romney built a
poor record on job creation, the argument continues.

Turning
to his own record, Obama tells voters that he inherited an economy on
the brink of collapse and averted a depression. He takes credit for a
resurgence in manufacturing, the rescue of the automobile industry
and the creation of more than 4 million jobs since February
2010.

Obama also slams Republicans in Congress for blocking his plans to stimulate more jobs. To
inoculate himself from potential setbacks over the summer and fall,
he warns of economic trouble spilling over from Europe.

In the
end, Obama says, he would keep the country moving forward while
Romney would take it back to the George W. Bush policies that wrecked
the economy in the first place.

Verizon is changing up its cell phone
plans, moving toward monthly plans that allow users to connect up to
10 devices, including tablets and PCs, to their cell phone network.

District fails in multiple categories

The school district got an F for state test results, closing gaps related
to income, race, culture and disabilities, progress among gifted
students, progress among students with disabilities and both categories
for graduation rates, which measure how many students graduated within four
or five years.

CPS also got a D for progress among
students who started out in the bottom fifth for achievement, and it got
a C for progress among all
student groups and how many students passed state tests.

The grades come with a big caveat: CPS is still being investigated for scrubbing data, which could be favorably skewing the school district’s results.

This is the first year ODE is using the new A-F grading system, which is more stringent than how schools were previously scored. No school district earned straight A’s this year, according to StateImpact Ohio.

Because the system is new,
some of the categories that schools are graded on are missing and will
be added in the next few years. Specifically, the report card won’t
measure overall results for the district, test scores, gap closing, K-3
literacy, progress, graduation rates and preparation for college and
careers until 2015.

Under the old system, CPS dropped from “effective,” which
made it the best-rated urban school district in Ohio for the 2010-2011
school year, to “continuous improvement” for 2011-2012. Those results
are also under review based on data-scrubbing investigations.

CPS has recently gained national recognition in The Huffington Post and The New York Times for its community learning centers, which turn schools into hubs that can be used by locals for resources ranging from education to dental care.

In November 2012, Cincinnati voters approved a levy renewal for CPS in a 65-35 percent vote, which kept local property taxes roughly $253 higher on a $100,000 home.

The official website for the school report cards can be found here, but it’s been having technical problems for most of the day.

Grant will support 50 tutors helping 100 students

The mayor, Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) and The Strive
Partnership announced today a new joint initiative that won a $40,000
grant. The grant, which is funded by Target through the Cities of
Service and Service Nation, will help tutors teach kids how to read by
the third grade.

With the money, 50 tutors will help 100 students in first,
second and third grade in five schools to meet the state’s new Third
Grade Reading Guarantee, which requires third-grade students to be
proficient in reading in state tests before advancing to the fourth grade.

“It all starts with reading,” Mallory said in a
statement. “And there is no better way to help our kids learn to read
than with one-on-one tutors who they can get to know and trust. A
committed adult can make learning to read fun. This grant is going to
have a huge impact on the lives of a lot of kids.”

The tutors will focus on five CPS schools: Roberts Paideia
Academy in East Price Hill, Rockdale Academy in Avondale, Mt. Airy
School, Pleasant Hill Academy in College Hill and Pleasant Ridge
Montessori School.

The new state reading requirement, which was pushed by Republican Gov. John Kasich, has received criticism from some Democrats and education experts. Research shows holding kids back hurts more
than helps. After reviewing decades of research, the National Association of
School Psychologists found grade retention has “deleterious long-term
effects,” both academically and socially.

Scores down after controversial ascension from "academic emergency" to "excellent"

After two
years of racking up an excellent rating on its state report card, Robert
A. Taft Information Technology High School appears headed for a lower
grade.

Preliminary
school report cards released Wednesday by the Ohio Department of
Education show an “effective” rating for Taft, a technology-magnet
school for grades 9-12 in Cincinnati’s West End. Taft had won accolades
nationally for its steady climb from academic futility during the past seven
years. In that span, Taft went from “academic emergency” in the 2004-05
school year to excellent in 2009-10 and 2010-11, mainly on the strength
of Ohio Graduation Test pass rates that were the highest of all public
high schools in Southwest Ohio. The U.S. Department of Education gave it
a coveted National Blue Ribbon Award.

CityBeat called those achievements into question in a February article ("Miracle or Mirage," issue of Feb. 22).CityBeat
found that the same graduating classes (2009-10 and 2010-11) that were
posting regionally high OGT pass rates had average composite ACT test
scores of 15, or the 10th percentile in Ohio. CityBeat also took
the first hard look at an independent audit showing that, of 1,707
erasures on Taft OGT exams in 2006, 88 percent resulted in correct
answers, an outcome one nationally prominent testing expert called “not
logical.” Cincinnati Public Schools, then led by former superintendent
Rosa Blackwell, refused to investigate the matter, and ODE let the
district get away with it.

For the
2011-12 school year, Taft still posted high pass rates on the OGT, but
its graduation rate of 82.1 percent (down from 91.4 percent in 2010-11)
and attendance rate of 91 percent (down from 96.7 percent) were below
state benchmarks, leading to the effective rating on its interim report
card.

While Taft
fell from excellence among the city’s public schools, another school,
James N. Gamble Montessori High School in Spring Grove Village, received
its first-ever excellent rating. And Walnut Hills extended its
long-running streak of excellent ratings. Winners of effective ratings
were Clark Montessori and Withrow University high schools.

As for the
district, Cincinnati Public Schools itself fell one notch on its state
report card. Last year, CPS was rated effective, making it the
highest-rated urban school district in Ohio. For 2011-12, it dropped to
“continuous improvement.” Said CPS spokeswoman Janet Walsh: “We really
would have loved to have gotten effective again, but the fact remains
that overall performance, as rated by the state performance index, did
reach 88.5, which is our highest score ever, and we continue to
improve.”

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and one Cincinnati group has one million reasons to be flattered. Strive is “a unique education partnership spanning all sectors of Greater Cincinnati society… working to help each child in our urban core succeed from birth through some form of college into a meaningful career” and their approach is being replicated across the United States.

What happens when tree-huggers go to school? You get “Green & Healthy Schools.”

ALLY: Alliance for Leadership and Interconnection is a “citizen’s group providing leadership coaching and strategic guidance for policy development and implementation of environmental sustainability programs.” According to their Web site. And their first significant action in 2004 was to begin the Growing Green and Healthy Schools Network.

If you come from a large family, you might remember when older siblings would always get new clothes when you were a child and you'd get their hand-me downs. That's also been the situation at Paul Brown Stadium in the past, but Hamilton County commissioners are putting a stop to it. Because the county's Riverfront Parking Operations needs two new trucks, the plan had been to move two trucks from Paul Brown to parking services and buy new ones for the stadium. Commissioners balked at the plan Tuesday, saying the new trucks should be bought for Parking Operations. Commissioner Todd Portune estimates the county will save up to $20,000 because Parking Operations doesn't require the same kind of heavy-duty trucks the stadium uses.

Cincinnati City Council is considering restoring $250,000 to the Cincinnati Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV). Council had cut the money from CIRV's budget in late 2010, but statistics show that the number of shootings increased in the city afterward. When CIRV was in full effect, the percentage of shootings linked to gang activity fell from nearly 70 percent in 2007 to around 50 percent in 2008 and 2009, but has bounced up to 60 percent in 2011 and so far this year. Part of the cash allocated to CIRV would pay for a statistical analysis by researchers at the University of Cincinnati, to determine if there is a verifiable link.

Federal prosecutors want the jury in the upcoming insider trading trial of former Procter & Gamble Co. board member Rajat Gupta to hear secretly recorded telephone conversations with another man as evidence of the alleged conspiracy between them. The government said in a pre-trial filing that the conversations showed Gupta, also a former Goldman Sachs director, leaked Goldman board secrets at the height of the financial crisis in 2008. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recorded the calls.

The Reds postponed Tuesday's game against the Chicago Cubs due to high water on the field at Great American Ball Park. Heavy rains on Tuesday afternoon and evening saturated the area, and the stadium was no exception. A makeup date hasn't been announced. The action marks only the sixth time that the Reds have postponed a game since Great American opened in 2003.

Cincinnati Public Schools will make energy-saving renovations at 28 schools using a nearly $27 million low-interest loan. The school board approved the plan Monday, despite some board members' concerns about moving ahead with the projects while the district cuts jobs and faces an estimated $43 million deficit.

In news elsewhere, the rumors were true: Blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng was hiding at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing since escaping house arrest last month. Chen's presence was revealed today when he left the diplomatic compound to seek medical treatment after receiving assurances from China’s government that he would be treated humanely. Chinese leaders agreed that Chen would be reunited with his family, moved to a safe place and allowed to enroll in a university, U.S. officials said. (Well, that's one international crisis averted, and only about 50 more to go.)

One of Willard Mitt Romney's top campaign spokesmen is leaving his job less than two weeks after his appointment. Richard Grenell, Romney's national security spokesman, resigned after some hardcore conservatives complained about the hiring of the openly gay man. Others, however, say it also was because Grenell was coming under fire “for numerous sexist and impolitic statements he had made about prominent women and members of the media.” After the complaints, he scrubbed over 800 tweets from his Twitter feed and deleted his personal website. Some reporters who dealt with Grenell while he was a spokesman for the United Nations years ago called him the "most dishonest and deceptive press person" they had ever encountered.

President Obama made a surprise visit Tuesday to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, just before today's first anniversary of the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Willard Mitt Romney has been criticizing the president's recent comments about bin Laden's death, but the Obama campaign questions whether Romney would've made the same decision, given his past statements. While in Afghanistan, Obama signed a security pact that means the United States will maintain a military presence there through 2024 – despite supposedly ending combat operations at the end of 2014. (For those keeping track, the deal means the United States will stay in Afghanistan for 23 years; let's just end the suspense and declare it our 51st state.)